I listened to a full episode of PSA for the first time in a while ("Podsgiving Mailbag", ). They were actually wayyyyyy more economically progressive than I expected, and this is a very good sign. I can't imagine that 2 years ago they were all-in on Medicare4All, Green New Deal, Jobs Guarantee (this one is huge imo), $15+, etc. (but perhaps I misjudge them.) My suspicion is that they're being swept left because of Bernie, AOC, and the general hard left Twitter/podcast/magazine/uni-verse.

Towards the end of the mailbag I started detecting unpleasant smarminess but whatever.

Then there's an interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin where they go into how brave and noble many past U.S. presidents have been (including LBJ, like do u even read Caro?), and this is where they lost me. They obviously still have that "respect for the office" nonsense, they'd slobber all over Bill Clinton for sure, they would handwave away Obama and the drones and all his other failings.

So I come away from the pod pleasantly surprised to the extent that bold economic progressive ideas have taken hold. But I cannot be a full-blown fanperson to a bunch of guys who worship LBJ, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. And who are supported by the advertising of a bunch of gig economy "disruptor" trash companies.

I just started Patreoning The Katie Halper Show after listening to interviews with Matt Christman (Chapo) and Nathan Robinson (Current Affairs) and wanting to hear their bonus interviews.

I think their obscure unexplained references are a part of what makes them good, and even perhaps make them seem smarter than they are. I see it as similar to a movie like Rounders before poker was popular, hearing a strange vernacular ("flopped the nut straight" etc.) that didn't make the whole movie incomprehensible, but gave it an air of authenticity and kinda made you feel smart for being able to follow along. (I don't know if this analogy makes sense to anyone other than me.)

But yea, they definitely have plenty of misses and bad bits imo. That's comedy.

My faves:

1. Michael & Us (it does not matter if you've actually seen whatever movie they're talking about that week)
2. Chapo
3. Citations Needed
4. 538
5. Current Affairs

The reason I have Current Affairs "low" despite loving their magazine and buying all their books is partly because their Patreon episodes can be boring. The main episodes are probably better (they're conflated in my head).

cross posting from AOC thread, this is a good one, looks like it's a 10-ep limited series but definitely worth a listen

New Chris Hayes Podcast with TaNahisi Coates.

https://art19.com/shows/why-is-this-...th-chris-hayes

van_zandt_nodding.gif

Just useless dudebros.


https://twitter.com/PodSaveAmerica/s...16976847110144

Nice that the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine continues to fight the Popular Front for the Palestine Peoples' Liberation. #VoteNader #VoteJillStein

Well, in keeping with this analogy I guess, you'll never beat back the modern Nazi party if your allies insist on keeping Reich Ministers of Propaganda on their roster of contributors. Good that these guys collect up some money and use it for nice things, but so did Harvey Weinstein. This isn't so much the tyranny of small differences (" People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine continues to fight the Popular Front for the Palestine Peoples' Liberation") but making sure your dudebros can't impose their garbage ethics too much into the zeitgeist of the party. Tim Miller type people are important and bad, the solution isn't to minimize the effects of people who gave him a platform and counted him as "one of the good guys" but instead wake people up about how they have a rotted type of worldview and turn the manipulation around; instead of the PSA dudebros weaponizing your political agency into their business and making you look dumb in the process, assume the opposite and use them only for what they're good at, conning naive white liberals out of their money and channeling it to something good and dispose of and disabuse their **** morals and social circles as fast as possible once they've shaken down the white liberal rubes for their cash.

We need to force simplicitus to sit through hours of Chapo, Clockwork Orange-style.

You don't have to force people. Listen to CTH enjoy the unintentional humor of 'True Allegiance' by Ben Shapiro.

Hearing him dunk of Cory Booker's Radical Love idea was pretty satisfying.

Axelrod pulls some great guests on his pod but his interview style is excruciating

Came here to post this. Great conversation

Latest chapo premium episode about the Eric trump documentary/fox nation review is hilarious and I feel is honestly pretty good at just showing how hilarious the concept of American meritocracy is. I honestly think it could politically neutral people favoring wealth taxes

Agreed, great podcast. See? We can have the same tastes.

Some stuff Ta-Nehisi nailed:

1. Agreed that Democrats are at their worst when they are doing uninspired, milquetoast **** like nominating Merrick Garland, a moderate old white dude. Part of why McConnell was able to get away with stealing the seat is because there was no left response because no one wanted to fight for Merrick Garland. Similarly, burn Confederate flags and never apologize for that ****. Both speak to the same problem some Democrats continue to have, that they're jockeying and trying to appease a non-existent middlebrow moderate white voter instead of animating the rest of us, who want to burn some Confederate ****ing flags, take that **** on, and who similarly aren't going to waste time storming the gates for Merrick Garland. Give us something more. And that some things are worth losing for, if it comes to it. Throw Heidi Heitkamp a parade, she took a stand against Kavanaugh and pays dividends long term for all of us not to be cowardly, calibrated, finger-in-the-wind centrists, and some of the best campaigns with the most long-last impacts (e.g., Stacy Abrams) are losing ones.

2. Reading history is a great antidote to elucidate what's normal about our present moment (more than we think) and what's abnormal and exceptional (some stuff we take for granted)

3. Voting is important but not the singular, most important thing about politics, it's really like down in the hierarchy of our political agency. Also hectoring people to vote (ala Obama) is almost bull**** when the systemic barriers are so high, don't shame people for not voting, tell people to take political action to make voting easier, and Obama certainly is partly responsible for not acting on the problem

That Garland point was quite good. I know a guy who clerked for him, and he was moderate about literally everything. A major agenda item after Trump will have to be dealing with the structural issues in the Senate. Promise small states free tuition agricultural universities (with a two year humanities requirement) if they accept refugees or something. Call it no hick left behind. Will turn them blue in 30 years. And admit DC and PR. And launch a nationwide scorn campaign vs Fox News. Like, run frigging ads with 1-800 numbers for people to call if their relatives have been brainwashed by Fox News. Doesn't matter if they just play music on the phone line, the point that Fox News lies to people for money needs to permiate the broader cultural understanding. Just roll back all the BS that took place in the 50s, from Confederate monuments to In God We Trust on money.

If they get the Senate too then yea, obviously statehood for DC/PR (at least). Problem is more if they don't get the Senate also.

The House now should start lobbing bombs at the Senate like Green New Deal, Jobs Guarantee, M4A, etc., with plenty in there to appeal to the "left behind" in red states. They'll all of course be expected to fail/not be voted on in the Senate, but they'll be popular and it's going to start putting major pressure on Senators from poor red states. Democrats should then scream about the Republican "obstructionism" for 2 years, getting voters primed for a bigger wave in 2020.

I like the idea of burning Confederate flags. This should happen on a regular basis, preferably in places like Birmingham and Jackson.

The podcast “You’re Wrong About...” is remarkably good. Two journalists take turns debunking something mythical from recent American history: DARE, crack babies, shaken baby syndrome, etc etc. One debunks or sets the record straight, the other plays the sounding board for the traditional perspective on whatever issue it is.

The frequency with which at their core these issues are driven by America’s racism, privilege, legal heavy handedness, and corruption is startling.

Dungeons & Dragons, MSG...

Latest Chris Hayes pod with David Roberts on epistemology is a must-listen.

Birmingham and Jackson are pretty liberal. Do that **** in like Cullman and Starkville.

Thank you for this rec, just burned through the first few episodes and they are fantastic. Really great podcast.

Nathan Robinson on NPR's apparently ****ty "How I Built This" podcast vs. Working People:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/...dnt-build-that

If you were wondering what Ikestoys has been up to since his banishment, check out the Dr. Death podcast.